My teeth will most likely be ready for surgery again in the next 6-8 weeks. At that point, I have to get the surgery. Since I have some root issues with my teeth, I can't sit in braces for nothing (allowing the root issues to get worse, which could cause me to loose teeth) and wait for new insurance to kick in starting Jan 2015. Both of the leading surgeons I am consulting with are in the $40-60K range cash price. To get on the surgery books, I have to have the $25,000 down payment for the one, or pay the total $60,000 for the other. I'm pretty sure they are both booked out a few months, so I need to get myself on the books asap so I am ready to go after my teeth are in surgical position. I put it off for as long as possible because I knew it was just going to hurt to look at the numbers, but I finally started researching loans. I have excellent credit and good income (finally... after years of being an awful young college student who didn't pay their stuff), so I thought this would be as simple as getting a low rate auto loan or something. Definitely not the case! This is what they call an unsecured loan. At best I am looking to get maybe 10-11%, but more than likely will end up in the 13-18% range for a 60 month repayment. My husband is being super supportive and taking out from his savings to help me out, so repayment on about $35,000 is looking to be around $850-1000/month. I've got about $55,000 more to pay off on my student loans. I'd say after cost of living in the bay area, I'm going to be looking at breaking even with money in/out, and not really getting much into my savings account for the next 6 years. Thank god I just paid off my car this month.It's going to be rough going, but I've got no other choice right now. It's the cost of doing business in the unfortunate situation I'm now in, which is indirectly no fault of my own. I say indirectly because I feel like I am in this situation because I entered into the first elective surgery knowing that this was a possible outcome and risk, and choose to take on that risk. BUT...nobody ever expects to be sliced and diced and put back together wrong. So, the fact that I was botched was not my fault, but I did enter in to the surgery knowing I could be left in a worst case scenario like this. So, at the same time I feel like I've brought this on myself in a way when I understood the risks and choose to have the surgery. And I don't want this to sound like me complaining. I just want to throw all of this out there for pre op patients reading the blog so they can think of and know the costs associated with the worst case scenario like this when it doesn't turn out right. I mean don't get me wrong-- this makes me sad and angry like everything else in this situation, but I am incredibly fortunate in a lot of ways. I have an awesome supportive husband who is willing to help me out the best he can (even though I am stubborn and don't want the help), and we're in a position where we can actually get the loan that we need, even though we don't like the rates. There are people out there who aren't fortunate enough to even be able to get the loan. These people have to suffer from the mistakes their surgeons made. NOBODY should have to live like that. These surgeons aren't even held accountable for what are sometimes very gross mistakes. Makes me think more and more about how broken our system really is. It's very sad.